Coca-Cola Amatil limits Indonesian investments

Coca-Cola Amatil limits Indonesian investments

SYDNEY (Reuters): Soft drink bottler Coca-Cola Amatil Ltd said yesterday it plans in the short term to limit new investment in its Indonesian operation to cash generated by the operation itself.

C-C Amatil chief executive David Kennedy told a briefing he remained positive about the long-term outlook in Indonesia, where the group has invested heavily in recent years.

In the short-term, C-C Amatil would monitor the situation carefully following recent political unrest.

"We're going to be managing within our internally generated cash flows," Kennedy told a media briefing.

Until the situation stabilized, the group would not look to increase its investment in Indonesia over and above what was generated by the operations, he said.

Kennedy said C-C Amatil would normally have expected to boost its investment in Indonesia beyond the business's cash flows given its rapid growth.

However, he said C-C Amatil would still look to improve its position so it would be in a stronger situation when the Indonesian economy began to improve.

Kennedy said C-C Amatil suffered almost no damage in Indonesia's recent unrest, apart from some minor damage to some trucks and the destruction of some sales equipment.

C-C Amatil has 10 bottling plants in Indonesia and employs about 9,000 people.